Steve Jobs, the ever-present visionary who drove Apple to become the most respected company in the world, has died at the age of 56. His death comes just weeks after resigning as the CEO of Apple for health reasons.

Jobs, in this mid-80s photo, brought Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy and turned it into one of the most successful companies on earth. Only Exxon Mobil Corp. is worth more.

Steve Jobs was the Walt Disney of our era and like Disney, he transformed an industry – the technology industry. First with computers, then with music players and cell phones. “He taught all of us how to transform technology into magic,” said John Sculley, Apple’s chief executive in the mid-1980s.

The Genesis of a Genius
Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to Syrian immigrant Abdulfattah John Jandali and Joanne Schieble, but he was given up for adoption. As an adopted child he lived a normal childhood, attending high school in Cupertino, California, where Apple is headquartered.

Jobs graduated in 1972. He attended Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out after one semester. He would remain on campus for another year, taking the occasional calligraphy class – this would later inspire his ideas for multiple fonts on the Mac. In 1974, Jobs returned to California and took a job with a videogame company called Atari. At Atari, Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak – the two would go on to invent the first Apple computer. The rest, as they say, is history.

Apple placed the following message on their website to announce the news. Send your memories and condolences to rememberingsteve@apple.com.

The End of an Era
The path for Jobs and Apple would prove to be full of obstacles, but Jobs would ultimately triumph. After being booted from the company he founded, he would return to Apple and for the last 20 years, he tirelessly drove the company toward mammoth global success. In the mid 2000s, Steve Jobs was diagnosed and treated for pancreatic cancer. In 2009, he took a six-month medical leave from Apple, but cancer was still ravaging his body and caused Steve Jobs resignation from Apple. Jobs leaves behind a wife and four children.

Steve Jobs’ life and legacy will live on. He will continue to inspire those who follow him. As he told a group of Stanford graduates in 2005, “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”